Other forms: forsaking, forsakes
To forsake is to abandon somebody or something for good. Forsake his family, godforsaken, forsaking all others.
It is archaic and survives chiefly in the marriage vow, forsaking all others, and in godforsaken. The past forms are forsook and forsaken. It carries a moral charge that abandon does not: to forsake somebody is a betrayal rather than a departure.
1verbforsakeTo abandon somebody or something for good.
“He promised never to forsake his friends, whatever happened.”
forsake is an abandoning.
Old English forsacan meant to renounce or deny — for, away, plus sacan, to dispute.
Proto-Indo-European
*seh₂g-
Proto-West Germanic
*frasakan — to forsake, renounce
Old English
forsacan — to oppose; to give up, renounce; to decline, refuse
Middle English
forsaken — to abandon, desert, repudiate, withdraw allegiance from
English, today
forsake
From Middle English forsaken (“to abandon, desert, repudiate, withdraw allegiance from”), from Old English forsacan (“to oppose; to give up, renounce; to decline, refuse”), from Proto-West Germanic frasakan (“to forsake, renounce”). by surface analysis, for- + sake. Cognates include stq ferseeke (“to deny, refuse”), West Frisian fersaakje, Dutch verzaken (“to renounce, forsake”), Middle High German versachen (“to deny”), Danish forsage (“to give up”), Swedish försaka (“to be without, give up”), Norwegian forsake (“to give up, renounce”), Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌺𐌰𐌽 (“to quarrel; to rebuke”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA